Prior to the late seventies, television broadcasting was primarily a static industry whose production and distribution techniques remained largely unchanged since the days of Milton Berle and “I Love Lucy.” Even with the advent of color television, the techniques through which ABC, CBS and NBC produced and distributed its network programming remained the same. Using analog and/or manually operated cameras, video tape recorders, playback machines, switchers, lighting and editing systems, these networks generated national programming combined with national commercial content. Programming was distributed to the networks' owned and operated, as well as affiliated TV stations, via national and regional terrestrial microwave systems operated by companies such as AT&T, WTCI, MRC and Western Union/CPI.
Sectionalization of the national TV Networks; i.e., delivery of programming and/or commercial content intended for a specific region and/or time zone, was accomplished by creating ring networks out of the national microwave distribution system by ordering part time “bridging circuits” and “rolling over” numerous tape machines at strategic locations in the national microwave network. For example, programming with the appropriate commercial insertions would be transmitted to the stations between New York City and the Chicago TV affiliate. In Chicago, two manually operated tape machines with commercial content and/or programming destined for the TV affiliates between Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well as for TV affiliates to the west of Chicago, provided the facilities to create two regional Network feeds. The first manually controlled tape machine would “roll over” the New York feed and transmit via a “bridging circuit” connected to microwave facilities on the national network between Chicago and Washington, D.C. In turn, the Washington, D.C. affiliate would have another manually controlled tape machine with commercial and program content destined for the TV affiliates in the Southeast ready to “roll over” the Chicago feed. Meanwhile, the second video tape machine at the Chicago TV affiliate would also “roll over” the New York feed and replace it with commercial and/or program content destined for the TV affiliates to the west of Chicago. Likewise, this technique would be used repeatedly in locations such as Birmingham, Wichita, Denver and other such cities across the network until the programming was sectionalized as desired across the network.
In order to perform switches between national and regional programming without noticeable interruption to the home television viewers, a period of available time was allocated for manually controlled local commercial insertion otherwise know as “local avails.” At each of the networks' local affiliates these “local avails” were used as a “window” in which sectionalization of the network could occur.
In addition, AT&T and the other terrestrial microwave providers supported these scheduled sectionaliztions of the various national TV Networks by manually executing time-based switching of the microwave network during these scheduled “local avails.” For example, an AT&T network technician would literally run between the racks of communications equipment at certain bridging locations with a patch cord in order to provide the necessary “bridging circuits” during the predetermined “local avail.”
With the advent and commercialization of satellite technology in the United States in the 1970's, ABC, CBS, NBC and the Public Broadcasting System all converted their terrestrial microwave distribution systems to satellite distribution during the early 1980's. In general, this decision was made due to the superior economics and flexibility of satellite technologies. As a result, new techniques and support systems needed to be developed in order to accomplish sectionalization and/or customization of the national TV networks.
As a result, the television broadcasting system generally changed from a serial, terrestrial network connecting stations to each other one-by-one via microwave towers, to a point-to-multi-point network where each sectional group was connected directly to the network origination earth station via a satellite link. Accordingly, each sectional group required a separate transponder to receive its designated commercial and programming content. Moreover, just as with a serial network configuration, each of the Network's TV affiliates continued to use its “local avail” as a “window” in which to switch between national, regional and local programming.
In addition, the transition of the U.S. terrestrial TV networks to satellite distribution created the first requirements for computer automation, management, coordination, monitoring, and control systems. The challenge of meeting these requirements resulted in further developments in technology. For example, computerized booking, scheduling and financial management of satellite and telecommunications facilities, origination earth stations, transponders and affiliate receive earth stations, local channels, long distance terrestrial facilities, to name a few, were developed. These systems were typically developed to (1) control and manage the inventory of telecommunications facilities to avoid “overbooking” two users for the same facility, (2) allow allocation of facility charges to be applied to the various network users both internal and external to the respective networks, and to (3) analyze usage to better manage existing facilities, as well as to plan future facilities. The transmission automation systems could also be used to switch facilities and thereby reroute video, audio and data services.
In general, the satellite network control systems installed in the early 1980's and used by the likes of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS have changed little since their original installation. As the computer technology became more widely available and used computerized network control systems were developed. In the respective broadcast centers of these networks in New York and Washington, D.C., a master computer system capable of transmitting low speed data via either the Vertical Blanking Interval (“VBI”) or a Single Channel Per Carrier (“SCPC”) transport system sends customized data streams to TV affiliate satellite receivers. This transmitted data instructs the various TV affiliate earth stations to perform a number of functions such as: (1) configuring the TV affiliate earth station to receive the appropriate TV programming by instructing it to point at a specific satellite and tune to a particular transponder and/or center frequency, (2) updating time based schedules and synchronize affiliate clocks, (3) updating network restoral procedures; i.e., instructions as to what to do if the inbound data channel and/or programming channel is lost due to a catastrophic satellite failure, (4) periodic-reporting instructions back to the master computer system via terrestrial data channels such as X.25 packet nets and later frame relay and/or ATM, (5) reporting back to the master computer system as to the status of various components of the affiliate earth station and control system.
Another condition created by the transition to a point-to-multi-point, satellite distribution system was that unauthorized access or “piracy” of programming became an issue. Nearly impossible in a terrestrial, point-to-point microwave system, satellite distribution enabled the “piracy” of programming out of market from major league sporting events, premium cable as well as pay-per-view (PPV) programming. In response, encryption and conditional access systems have been developed. In early implementations Scientific Atlanta B-Mac and General Instrument VideoCypher “scrambling” products were utilized for these purposes. Today, these systems are still in wide use in analog, satellite distribution systems. In general, it can be said that B-Mac was and is utilized more in Europe while VideoCypher was and is utilized more in the United States.
With the development and installation of digital video compression and transmission systems designed for TV, Cable, PPV and DTH program networks in the 1990's, a new generation of encryption and conditional access products has been developed for them. As with the analog encryption products, Scientific Atlanta and General Instruments own the largest U.S. market share for broadcast quality, video compression products with their PowerVu and DigiCypher product lines both of which come bundled with their own conditional access systems.
Outside of the U.S., DVB standards-based video compression systems are the most common. In addition, numerous DVB compatible conditional access systems have been developed by companies such as Nagra, Iredeto, NDS, Telenor, France Telecom, etc. In general, these systems monitor and control the authorization of full-time, occasional, and/or PPV programming and group de-authorization of major league sports for “blackouts” in local markets.
Regarding the key based encryption and conditional access techniques used for the distribution of broadcast quality programming, existing networks utilize systems that were developed for use with broadcast networks; i.e., systems that are configured in either a point-to-point or point-to-multi-point fashion. In short, the programming is encrypted at one end of a transmission link and decrypted at the other end. This being the case, current program distribution networks do not pass encrypted programming through one headend and have it decrypted at an appropriate, downstream headend. During the 1980's and 1990's, the increasing availability and affordability of mini and personal computer computing systems allowed the TV and Cable Networks to automate more and more manual broadcast operations. For example, traffic and station management systems were developed to manage commercial sales and programming contracts as well as to create the daily program schedules and “as run” logs. In short, these systems concentrated on the financial and operational aspects of revenue and expenses; i.e., revenue generating commercials and programming. Originally implemented on mainframe computers, systems of this type are now available on mini and high-end personal computing platforms. Videotape library systems were developed to manage the archival, duplication and usage of video taped programs. Manpower & facility scheduling systems were developed to schedule and analyze the usage of technical manpower and facilities such as studios, tape machines, edit rooms, graphics effects, etc. Network playback automation computers scheduled videotape and/or file server based network playback devices were also developed to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of network playback operations. Studio Automation/Robotics have been used to automate studio lighting and the remote control of camera operations. Newsroom Automation computers and digital video and audio technologies have also been developed to increase the efficiency of newsroom operations; i.e., the coordination and integration of file server, edit and story creation subsystems for the purpose of minimizing the time and effort required to create TV programming. Still & Animated Graphics enable the creation, manipulation and management of computer generated, digital graphics. Digital video compression & transmission provide a means by which the digital bandwidth required to transport video of a certain quality is reduced. Current techniques utilize Discrete Cosine Transfer (DCT) algorithms and standards based formats such as MPEG, JPEG, etc.
Today, network distribution of broadcast quality television programming via terrestrial TV, cable MSO (Multiple System Operator) or DTH (Direct To Home) systems is still accomplished primarily by analog, satellite distribution. Over the past two decades as these broadcast TV technologies have developed, the number of new broadcast, cable and DTH channels has increased from four national networks to hundreds of free, premium and pay-per-view channels. As a general rule of thumb, the newer networks tend to use more of the digital and automation technologies. For example, practically all new networks utilize digital video transmission while to this day, ABC, CBS and NBC, utilize analog satellite distribution for their main network feeds.
Even with the automation and digitization of the TV production and distribution process that has occurred over the last couple of decades, the means of distributing and sectionalizing TV Networks remains essentially the same. Currently, land mass and/or international distribution of “broadcast quality” television is accomplished via satellite. All of these networks are point-to-multi-point networks that employ two alternatives when injecting local and/or regional programming. Either multiple feeds are provided from the network uplink and switched between local commercials or program content is, injected at a local retransmit site such as a cable headend or terrestrial TV station. In both cases, the national and local content is almost always displayed in a common, “full screen” format with the primary exception being the Bloomberg Network which injects national commercials in the video “window” in their multi-part screen format and local commercials at cable headends in a “full screen” format.
These existing systems address basic requirements such as the ability to reduce the digital bandwidth necessary to carry a video signal of any given quality, the ability to transport these: digitally compressed video and audio signals via standard digital transmission and modulation systems whether satellite, fiber, wireless and/or Internet based, and the ability to scramble and control individual authorization of groups and/or specific satellite receivers over a point-to-point and/or multi-point system via the use of key based conditional access and encryption technologies. In most cases, the network and/or regional/sectional programming is distributed from a network headend facility directly to the appropriate redistribution headend. In other words, TV networks are not designed to forward the appropriate program elements both real-time and stored to an automated, remote origination node for customized production, coordination and distribution of broadcast quality localized programming via terrestrial TV, cable MSO, DTH headend, internet web servers and/or home based processing unit
With newly launched TV networks, however, the utilization of digital, video compression, conditional access as well as transmission techniques is virtually assured. Previous networks have used one or more combinations of existing analog, satellite distribution, or a hybrid digital, analog approach to transmitting real-time programming and program elements to a headend for retransmission and customized programming for local delivery by inserting full screen graphics and/or video. Even with the utilization of these new technologies, significantly more in the way of integration of digital technologies and product features that can be developed.
Currently, little has been done to implement a comprehensive integration of the various automated and/or digitized portions of the network. While traffic, news room, and playback production automation systems have been integrated to a large degree, little beyond this has been accomplished. The automation systems may extend beyond the production and transmission facilities as network integration advances. Further efficiencies may be realized as the production and broadcast distribution of programming is further integrated and automated using today's technology and future evolving technologies. Further efficiencies in integration and automation will allow greater economy in delivering programming as well as providing greater flexibility in the programming that can be provided. Moreover, as the convergence of computer, TV and telecommunications technologies evolves, broader and broader integration of these automated subsystems will be required to deliver the programming of the next generation.